if the united states pulls out, the crazies only get stronger. the clash of civilizations exists, and it is within islam between those who want to burn american embassies and those who want to partner with us in building modern societies. we have a stake in who wins that struggle. let's get started. >>> joining me now, the man who was national security adviser in 1979 when the u.s. embassy was taken over, zbigniew brzezinski. president carter's national security adviser. welcome, zbigniew. >> welcome. good to see you. >> do you worry about some dramatic event like in the late 1970s taking place across the world? >> not really. i think the situation today is much more complex than then. at the time the muslim states in the area were relatively conservative, politically controlled, internally stable, with the exception of iran, which eventually disintegrated. but we didn't respond by plunging the region into a war and i think we have to thing of that very hard these days because the entire region is very volatile. tremendous emotions have been unle